Little Miss Sunshine is a scrappy human comedy that takes an honest path to laughs and is twice as funny and touching for it. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (see also: Ruby Sparks) directed a charming road movie with some unexpected twists and a darker edge, which is still a great family film. Original audio, hungarian subtitles, free entry.
When a
pudgy
,
bespectacled seven-year-old
,
Olive (Abigail Breslin)
, voices her desire to take home the coveted
Little Miss Sunshine crown
at an upcoming beauty pageant, her
wildly dysfunctional family
sets out on an
interstate road trip
to ensure her a clear shot at realizing her dreams in
former music video directorial team Jonathan Dayton
and
Valerie Faris' quirky feature debut
, starring
Greg Kinnear
,
Steve Carell
, and
Toni Collette
. Despite early career success as an
outspoken motivational
speaker
, family patriarch Richard (Kinnear) continues to cling to his "Refuse to Lose" philosophy, much to the chagrin of his increasingly annoyed spouse, Sheryl (Collette). Add into the mix a
Nietzsche-reading teenage son
(Paul Dano) who has taken
a vow of silence until he finds his fate as a fighter pilot
; a
horny
,
heroin-happy grandfather
(Alan Arkin) with a penchant for creative profanity; and a
suicidal genius
(Carell)
and Proust scholar still reeling about losing both his male lover
and his MacArthur Foundation genius grant -- and the stage is set for a road trip in which sanity is sure to take the back seat.
